Jingoistic NBC Waves the Flag at the French Open : Tennis: Clearly the network believes its ratings depend on covering U.S. players to the exclusion of others.

Flag-waving NBC Sports just doesn’t get it.

Its jingoistic coverage of the French Open--one of four Grand Slam events on the professional tennis circuit--is for the America-first crowd. It’s also for people who don’t like tennis.

Yes, the French love their Yannick Noah, the Germans their Boris Becker and Steffi Graf. And Andres Gomez is probably idolized in Ecuador.

Except for intense national rivalries spun from Davis Cup competition, however, pro tennis today is a sport whose heroes are international. Thanks largely to their exposure on television, they belong to a global tennis public. It’s a beautiful thing: After hearing the first thwock of a tennis ball, your awareness of national boundaries vanishes and the only lines that matter are the ones that frame the court.

The tennis spectator’s biggest joy comes not from a misplaced patriotism--the United States against the world--but from watching a universal cast of athletes participating in a wonderfully entertaining sport.

But now come those super-patriot pragmatists at NBC Sports who seem to believe that rallying around the flag will increase tennis ratings.

“It’s an All-American day,” NBC’s Dick Enberg crowed Sunday, ignoring the existence of players from other nations still alive in the Paris tournament. Of course, within the narrow realm of NBC’s coverage, it was an All-American day.

NBC beamed that message home right away by superimposing pictures of Americans Andre Agassi, Michael Chang, Jim Courier and Jennifer Capriati over an American flag blowing in a breeze. Were viewers supposed to jump to their feet and say the Pledge of Allegiance?

Although the tournament had begun almost a week earlier, Saturday was NBC’s first day of coverage. It began in the afternoon with taped coverage of Capriati’s win over Austrian Judith Wiesner. Very nice. Capriati is certainly a big story.

Uh . . . except that the entire match already had been shown hours earlier on ESPN, whose own six-days-a-week coverage (6-11 a.m.) continues to be vastly better than NBC’s.

Capriati twice in one day?

The 14-year-old Capriati is obviously not only an extraordinary tennis talent who has earned remarkable early success, but also a simply swell kid who seems refreshingly unspoiled. She chews gum. She giggles. She probably even baby-sits.

But enough already. The media-aimed white-hot spotlight--Capriati has already made the cover of Newsweek--is starting to singe. It’s bad for her, raising expectations to the point that if she fails to win a Grand Slam title by age 16 she’ll probably be labeled a flop. And it’s bad for us.

Shades of Mary Lou Retton, the overpublicized micro-gymnast who ultimately wore out her welcome with a frozen, toothy smile that could curl your neck hairs. In spite of being so likable, Capriati is starting to have the same grating effect due to the sheer volume of her exposure.

It’s apparent that NBC believes that its tennis ratings depend on giving infinitely greater exposure to U.S. players than to others. Business is business. But turning pro tennis into a celebration of America is going much too far.

After the Capriati match came NBC’s long rehash of Chang’s route to last year’s French Open championship, followed by a review of Chang’s progress in this year’s tournament, followed by a bloated interview with American John McEnroe (who isn’t even playing in the French Open). In other words, NBC seemed to prefer dusting off stale matches with Americans rather than showing fresher matches with non-Americans. And did NBC really believe viewers would prefer hearing McEnroe talk than seeing someone else play?

How far behind was NBC? “Don’t discount (Aaron) Krickstein,” Enberg said about the American player who five hours earlier on ESPN was shown being ousted from the tournament.

On Sunday, NBC was so absorbed in showing Agassi’s entire match with Courier, along with two brief excerpts of Capriati’s crushing of Argentine Mercedes Paz, that you might have thought no other players remained in the tournament. NBC waited until 95 of its 120 minutes of coverage had elapsed before reporting the day’s other French Open scores.

The French Open also has marked the debut of NBC’s new tennis commentators, Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert, and their initial TV work mirrored their tennis styles.

Connors frequently had something to say, and said it aggressively (although not very articulately). He’s made a good start.

Evert spoke about as often on NBC as she came to the net on the tennis court, which was almost never. In encouraging her to say more during Saturday’s Capriati-Wiesner match, poor Enberg sounded as if he were pulling words from a tar pit. And when Evert did comment, it was usually from the perspective of her unofficial protege, Capriati.

Evert did a little better Sunday, but on this day the main focus was not Capriati’s match, but Agassi-Courier.

Contrasting with NBC, ESPN’s French Open telecasts have been outstanding, giving tennis the global context it deserves.

The ESPN performances are not all good. Barry Tomkins is an able studio man but a lousy tennis announcer. And morning after morning, Kim Prince’s updates of scores are an adventure. But the core of talent--former players Mary Carillo, Cliff Drysdale and Fred Stolle--continues to be the best in the tennis telecasting business.

If you love tennis, try ESPN at 6 a.m. There’s something mesmerizing about watching at that time of morning. The ESPN commentators not only describe tennis, moreover, they discuss it in an intelligent way that no one on NBC, except for Bud Collins, seems prepared to do.

NBC has another agenda. This weekend it covers the conclusion of the French Open--whose title it also superimposed over a U.S. flag--before traveling to another tennis venue in England. “Later this month,” said Enberg, “the Americans venture to Wimbledon.”

Of course, the Americans. And NBC Sports will be with them, Old Glory unfurled.